SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/18/2016 8:52 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Concerned Sisters
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 11:3-6
Message of the verses: “3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying,
"Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick." 4 But when Jesus heard
this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of
God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it." 5 Now Jesus loved
Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that he was sick, He then
stayed two days longer in the place where He was.”
When we
look at this short passage we see that there is a lot of love involved in it,
for we see that the sisters loved their brother, and that Jesus loved this
entire family. We don’t know if they all
lived together, if they were married or much about them, but one thing for sure
we know is that they loved each other.
The family also knew that Jesus had the power to save Lazarus from the
death of whatever disease he had and that is why they sent for Jesus. I have to believe that they also knew that
things were not good for Jesus in Judea and in particular in Jerusalem which
they lived close too. They would have
also had to know where Jesus was ministering at for they sent someone to talk
to Him about their brother. Now there is
another thing that is seen here, something that I have been thinking about since
I listened to John MacArthur’s latest sermon on this section, and that is that
this section speaks of Jesus’ humanity, yes I know that it also speaks of His
deity too, but having friends and family and having love between them is a
natural part of being human. We can see
this demonstrated in the life of Jesus as he deals with this family that many
believe that he stayed with on many different occasions and go to know them
very well. Sometimes it is hard to
understand the humanity of our Lord as we get wrong concepts of Him because He
is 100% man along with 100% God, and that for sure makes it difficult for us to
understand all about Jesus. We can see
in this passage that a part of what it was like for Jesus to be human “Now
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”
We know
that because Jesus is God that He is omniscience and knew all about the
sickness and death of Lazarus and what He was going to do about it, but as
stated above He loved him and so it was also difficult for Him to see him
die. Like I said it is difficult for us
to understand all of this, but perhaps if we think about the loss of a good
friend or family member and how we felt about it even though we knew that that
person was a true believer in Jesus Christ and that we would see them again, it
is still hard for us to deal with it.
Remember when a believe dies he is not lost even though we lose them
from being on planet earth we know where they are so they are not lost in that we
don’t know where they are.
We have to
believe that Lazarus was already dead by the time that the messenger got to see
Jesus, for if it took one day to get to Him and one day to return to them, and
Jesus stayed there two more days and left and the text states that he was dead
for four days then we can believe that sometime soon after the messenger left that
Lazarus died.
The message
that was given to Jesus by the sisters through the messenger is a tender
message for as I stated they knew the danger that faced Jesus when He left
Jerusalem, but they simply stated “the one you love is sick.” Now as I look at this situation from the vantage
point of knowing what Jesus did and when Jesus died I can see that there was nothing
that was going to happen to Jesus until the planed time of when He was to die
on the cross and that had to be on the Passover day when the sacrificial lambs
were slain at 3:00 PM, so that takes a lot of the drama out of it for me, but
not for the sisters who knew the danger.
Now the word translated love is the Greek word “phileo” and this word for love means the love of friendship and
affection, which is not the word that is in verses like John 3:16 which is agape the kind of love that God has for
us, giving us what we can never earn with nothing in return expected from
Him. Now that does not mean that we are
not supposed to live for the Lord.
John
MacArthur writes “When Jesus heard the message, He said, ‘This sickness in not
to end in death.’ The Lord obviously did
not mean that Lazarus was not going to die, but rather that death would not be
the ultimate outcome. Like the blind man
(9:3), his illness, death, and resurrection were all for the glory of God. Contrary to the teaching of some, Christ’s
response indicates that sickness and even death may sometimes be God’s will for
His people (cf. 21:19; Ex. 4:11; Job 1, 2).
In this case, Lazarus’s circumstances would bring glory to God because
through them the Son of God would be glorified (cf. 12:23,28).”
Now as
stated Jesus loved this family and was very close to them and so when we read
that when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick “He stayed two days longer in the
place where He was” we might find this puzzling to us. Jesus did not delay to allow him to die, for
as stated He was probably all ready dead when the messenger got to Jesus. MacArthur writes that “the delay did serve
several purposes: it strengthened the sister’s faith in the Lord by forcing
them to trust Him; it made it clear that Lazarus was truly dead…and hence that
Jesus’ raising of him was indeed a miracle; and as always, Jesus operated
according to God’s timetable, not man’s.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Understand the fact that God has a timetable,
and not only for what is going on in this very unsettled world, but also in
everyone’s life as well. This should
give comfort to me along with every believer.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to work things
out in my life that will be good for me and bring glory to His name.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:5-7) “5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness
of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His
resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our
old self was crucified with Him, in order that the our body of sin might be
done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has
died is freed from sin.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “God” Exodus 20:8).
Today’s Bible question:
“Where did the people try to build a tower to heaven?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/18/2016 10:12 AM
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